


Even Wizards are Teenagers Sometimes

by french_charlotte



Series: Other People's Choices: Draco's Side of the Story [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Boys Being Boys, Draco and Harry finally aren't fighting for once, Dramione (Mentioned), F/M, Family Bonding, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Gen, Good Draco Malfoy, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Short One Shot, Spy Draco Malfoy, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26950306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/french_charlotte/pseuds/french_charlotte
Summary: Fighting a war against a dark wizard is an exhausting endeavor. But that doesn't mean there aren't times of relaxation to catch your breath. As the Order's newest spy, Draco is trying to learn how to be roommates with Harry while temporarily living in Snape's quarters. Amazingly, they haven't killed one another, and instead have a few moments of shared fun and good conversation involving a game called Transfiguration Roulette and a small lesson on family trees and how the Potters and Malfoys are related.This is fanfiction of fanfiction. A "missing chapter" from Jewelburns's story, "The Choices We Made". Set in Draco's POV.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Series: Other People's Choices: Draco's Side of the Story [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1914247
Kudos: 14





	1. Transfiguration Roulette

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Choices We Made](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24726043) by [JewelBurns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JewelBurns/pseuds/JewelBurns). 



> This is a complementary chapter to my sister's story, "The Choices We Made", specifically chapter 62. "The Choices We Made" is a wonderfully written story that's worth a binge read with a lovely mix of genres. The original story is set in Snape and Harry's POV but with some solid Dramione and Draco time. I've got a few works for it that are exclusively in Draco's POV. As they're 'piggyback chapters' to complement the main storyline, they'll be published periodically when deemed appropriate timing. 
> 
> Warnings: This is wholesome, innocent, teenage boys being teenage boys doing a great job at wrecking Snape's quarters. No slash. 
> 
> Author Note: This is fanfiction and clearly breaks from canon. It would be super beneficial to read the main story. Even if you don't before reading this little slice of heaven, definitely check it out afterwards. "Transfiguration Roulette" is my own creation.

When Draco was young, receiving a sterling education in Wizarding history was one of the many subjects in his pre-Hogwarts repertoire, a period when his education fell on his parents. Sparing no expense, his mother arranged an impressive lineup of governesses and tutors that busied in and out of the manor throughout his boyhood: a Russian numerologist who wrote dozens of expositions on the Pythagorean system; a French governess from the rural mountains of Lyons that taught history and literature; an ailing old man with a thick Arabic accent taught him ancient astronomy, though lectures often tangented into the man telling stories from his tribe’s ancestors, the Moabites, and Draco was all the happier for it.

But he remembered vividly the day his French governess regaled him the tale of Marie Antionette and how she created a small hamlet, a model village with flawless facades, to escape the suffocating aristocratic lifestyle. At least, that was the outward reason. With wizards and witches no longer openly welcomed in Muggle courts, that didn’t stop them from weaving their influence in more clandestine efforts. And the “Queen’s Hamlet”, an otherwise innocuous idea seen as nothing more than the queen’s latest money sink, served as the perfect location to stow the wizards she kept in her close circle. 

The hamlet was a modest place of peasantry and rustic flavors with a farm, windmill, and several additional cottages housing stove rooms and billiards. The queen herself enjoyed her artificial village with her daughter, allowing her to dress up as one of the farmers and using it as an educational outlet for the heiress. And at the end of the day, unlike the actual peasants, the young princess would skip happily back to the palace to shed off her serf costume and wash herself of the dirt from the day as though it were stage make-up. In seconds, she would leave behind the grime of her playground and return to the splendor of her royal birth. 

And that’s exactly what Draco kept telling himself as he sat on his bed. His time at Snape’s shabby quarters was only a temporary ordeal. And even going into hiding would be an extension of that temporary torment. Soon enough, once the Order managed sound cohesion, figured out leadership skills, and Harry wasn’t constantly on his deathbed, Voldemort would be killed, and his family would return to their privileged lifestyle. He only needed to wait it out, buy his time. As his father said, sometimes you had to walk into the fire to get through it. 

Looking around his bedroom, Draco felt his resolve diminish. It was sparse and depressingly plain, not even in a contemporary sort of way. After sleeping in the bed for so many restless nights, he felt confident he could successfully guess how many springs were in the mattress. And that number didn’t inspire much faith in his mentor’s capability to appreciate fine quality. As irony would have it, the most impressive aspect to the room was the enchanted window, which he didn’t even keep on. At first, he enjoyed the view of the lake’s depths, the phosphorescent water casting an enthralling green glow into his room and almost making him forget where he was. For the past six years, it was a view he’d come to attribute to his common room and dormitories. But now it just felt stale and fabricated; a thin veil trying to hide his troubled plight. 

He’d wiped the enchant away after that first night and hadn’t activated it since. 

There were no silver lanterns or sounds of water splashing against the window. While the room had a four-poster bed, the wood looked newer and slightly lighter in hue than the one found back at the boy’s dormitory – possibly an acacia wood instead of the ancient almond he was used to. His trunk still rested at the foot of his bed, purposefully left fully unpacked. At first, he left it that way under the assumption that he wouldn’t be remaining in the quarters for long. But now he did it out of pure willpower not to accept that the lodging was going to be long-term. 

He’d gone through the room casting _Scourgify_ repeatedly, even on surfaces that were no longer dusty and dirty. It was on the third or fourth round that he realized he was trying to make the meager room of higher caliber and the charm he was using wasn’t the right one to achieve that. No, he had to do something much more dramatic if he wanted that. 

Or throw galleons at the temporary room, which he was not in a position to do. Nor did he think Snape would appreciate being pointedly told his decorating skills were on par with the Weasleys. 

An idea came to him hard and fast. Already dressed in his pyjamas – depressingly early for a weekend – he’d been prepared to devote the night to his transfiguration homework, namely studying theory behind the Principle Exceptions, and then turn in early. But cleverness struck at the perfect time, and as he casted a look over his shoulder at the schoolbooks and parchment littering his bed, he felt a surge of excitement he hadn’t experienced in a long time. 

It would be difficult and potentially dangerous. He needed an accomplice in the event that things went wrong. Not that he expected any maladies in the process; he was a NEWT-level Transfiguration student. And with Snape away for some meeting with McGonagall, it was the perfect time for him to do it undisturbed. 

Really, Snape would be thanking him when he returned… once he overlooked the liberal use of spells.

Springing to his feet, Draco excitedly grabbed his wand and practically sprinted out of his room, throwing the bedroom door open so fast and furious that it smacked the wall with a boom. As expected, the Gryffindor was found lounging on the couch, some kind of sketch pad pressed against his bent legs, and the writing utensil no longer dancing across the page now that he was looking up questioningly. The sensible part of Draco told him he should’ve waited for Hermione to finish her Prefect responsibilities that night and ask her to help him with the endeavor. She was talented in Transfiguration, had been the one to teach him the advanced charms, and would correct him where he went wrong, if he did. Harry wasn’t even allowed to use magic. If anything did go amiss, the other teen would be useless in _doing_ anything about it, beyond helplessly pointing out his mistakes. His assistance was purely of the consultant nature, and to serve as a witness if there was a grievous mistake. 

“Come into my room. I need you,” the Slytherin demanded, half-hanging out of his bedroom with one hand grasped around the edge of the doorway. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s not as important as this.” 

The emerald eyes narrowed on him. “What are you up to?” 

Draco hesitated. “Redecorating.” A sensible, honest answer. 

The other boy pressed his lips together in a look of deliberation and doubt. And though he put his pencil down, Harry didn’t budge yet from his spot; an observation that made Draco all the more annoyed that his demand didn’t yield immediate results. Clearly, his excitement wasn’t shared. “Look at me,” Harry began and gestured down at his frail body, the pyjamas hanging off his skeletal frame. “I’m not exactly a good person to pick to move furniture. Besides…” he looked back down at his sketch pad dismissively, and the Slytherin didn’t miss the bitterness in the other teen’s tone. “You have your wand. Use it.” 

Taking the advice at face value, the blonde quickly summoned the Gryffindor’s sketch pad, ripping the prized possession from its owner’s fingers and right into his awaiting hands. An immediate look of anger blotched across Harry’s face as he was on his feet in seconds, the emotion filling in his sunken features. And while Draco celebrated the feat and was tempted to thumb through the damn sketchpad, another part of him told him to respect the privacy that he basically shattered. He waved the sketchpad a little in the air and took a few steps backwards into his bedroom. “You can get this back after you help me.” 

Jaw tense and shoulders taut, Harry stomped after him. “Extortion? How very Slytherin of you.” 

“I call it opportunistic.” Draco shrugged a little as he tossed the sketchpad to his bed and stood between it and the enchanted window, arms casually crossed over his front. “And where’s that Gryffindor trait that compels you to help out orphaned kittens and charity cases? You don’t even have to do anything, honestly. I just need you to stand there and observe while I do the work.” He flashed a smile that was supposed to be more sarcasm than genuine humor, but it came out more the latter. “Just like class.” 

Content at least to have his sketchpad back, Harry pressed it possessively against his chest – either to hide the personal contents or protect it from being yanked away again, Draco wasn’t sure – and rolled his eyes a little. But the smile and lightheartedness in the blonde’s words were enough to drain the fount of aggression from the Gryffindor, or at least transform it to curiosity. “How exactly are you decorating?” 

“Transfiguration, obviously.” The Malfoy heir figured he’d start small and turned his wand towards the wardrobe flush against the wall. In its current state, it was in desperate need of sanding and restaining, and the feet were uneven, making the entire piece wobble when opened. It reminded him of the antiques his mother enjoyed finding at markets, before they went through restoration, because nothing in such a shoddy state would ever be placed in the manor permanently. 

Staring down the length of the Hawthorn wand at the dresser, he focused his will and concentration into the charm, creating an indisputable image in his mind’s eye and forming the scene of what the bedroom would look like once the spell took. He convinced himself beyond doubt that it was true, focusing on the small details of the wardrobe’s interior shelves, intricate carvings, and rich yew wood. And once confident in his mind’s machinations did he finally mutter the spell. 

Both boys were surprised when an expensive, tall wardrobe now stood in the place that Snape’s used to be. And just as Draco desired of it, the wood was sanded to perfection, giving the forest of dark colored knots an intense gloss from its natural oils. The carvings on the front were geometric and eye-catching, but he knew the rules of transfiguration would demand that _something_ of the original remained. 

“Impressed? I can do your room next if you ask nicely.” 

Harry ignored the arrogant words with a shake of his head and approached the wardrobe. Grabbing onto the edge of it, he gave it a little shake and chuckled at the dramatic wobble the furniture gave, teetering listlessly from its uneven legs. “It’s almost perfect. I guess you can put some parchment under it.” 

A frown immediately crossed the Slytherin’s face. So _that_ was the one attribute that carried over from its original state. “Still looks better than it used to,” he defended his work. “Now move out of the way. I’m going to try the bed.” 

The blonde repeated the same routine as before: funneling his will and building up his concentration, creating a perfect image in his mind and convincing himself it was real, forcing clarity where it needed to be, and wordlessly practicing the spell on his tongue before he eventually said it. The pale wood of the four-poster transformed into exotic woods with a matte finish, feeling like satin but durable and strong. Brocade fabric, green and silver and heavy, hung decoratively as drapes from the bed in dramatic swags. The once meek mattress enlarged considerably with plush stuffing and interior insulation. But the linens…

“I can always get a house elf to swap that out with linens from the dormitories,” Draco mumbled at the same cotton green comforter that remained from the previous bed. The two pillows from before were still there, pathetically thin, but were now joined with several more to compensate. 

They fell into a comfortable routine after that. Harry had not only loosened his grip on his sketchpad, but had become genuinely interested in the entire thing, dropping the sketchpad to the bed and offering feedback and advice to the blonde. Surprisingly, maybe as desperate for companionship or genuinely finding himself enjoying Harry’s company, Draco typically took the advice. The plain writing desk in the corner had turned into a grand desk of yew wood to match the wardrobe with numerous drawers, but his concentration had wavered. The molding wasn’t nearly as impressive as the other furniture, and the lack of symmetry made both boys snicker. 

Minutes quickly progressed into an hour, but neither seemed to notice the change of time. The living quarters rumbled with the sounds of spells and laughter and jesting challenges tossed back and forth. Harry made fun of the Slytherin’s penchant for extravagance and superfluous décor, and Draco jabbed back that the Gryffindor ought to begin taking notes if he wanted to develop a cultured palate. By the time the room was finished, it bore little resemblance for what it once was, save for the small attributes on each transfigured item, and instead reeked of the neoclassical and gothic revival aesthetic the Malfoy heir favored. 

He even activated the enchanted window again, waving his hand to go through the different views until he settled on a view of the lake’s inky surface instead of the world beneath it. He wasn’t trying to recreate the life he was leaving behind; he was working on accepting a new one. 

Still giddy from seeing the fruits of his labor, Draco turned to Harry with an eager smile. His next question came from a recess of his mind that he thought died years ago, a place where he existed as a child and could find fun and sport in the smallest of things. But it didn’t die. It was just neglected and dormant. “You want to play a game?” 

The Gryffindor’s brows shot up at the blonde’s uncharacteristic mischievousness. “What kind of game?” 

It was stupid. It was childish. It was something Draco rarely participated in back at the Slytherin common room beyond watching from his throne on the couch, tossing out sarcastic remarks and critical comments. Because the game was below him, he’d told himself when the others never invited him to play in the first place. 

And it was something that Draco absolutely wanted to play. “Transfiguration Roulette.” 

“Transfiguration Roulette?” Harry’s brows dipped into a curious furrow. “What’s that?” 

The blonde gave him an incredulous look. “Good lord, what do you Gryffindors do for fun? Fight over whose virtues are better?” He shook his head and walked to his trunk, throwing it open and began to rifle through the contents, namely his small library of books. “It’s a game that we’d play in our common room after hours. An older year – works better if they’re good with Transfiguration but more humorous if they’re not – gets blindfolded and spun around. Another randomly picks a spell from this—” He lifted a thick tome from the trunk, the spine titled with thick cursive print, _Glossary of Transfiguration Spells_ , “—and the first student blindly casts it. The student keeps going until he fails the spell and then another student is picked. Whoever casts the most successfully wins.” He snickered a little and nodded his head in a gesture for the raven-haired boy to follow him out of his bedroom. “And usually the common room is a right wreck by the end of the night.” 

Though Harry followed him, reluctance was written all over his face. “I dunno if we should do that here. With Severus’s stuff….” 

“We’ll turn it all back to normal before he gets back from his date with McGonagall.” He spun on the other teen, shoving the book into his thin chest, almost feeling guilty at how fragile Harry felt, and gave him a challenging look. “Come on. Allow yourself to have a little harmless fun, won’t you?” 

Though his fingers wrapped around the book, Harry blinked rapidly as he looked to the side, either sheepish or irritated as he said, “I can’t use magic, remember? I can’t… I can’t cast.” 

Draco shrugged indifferently and grabbed a dish towel from the kitchen. “So don’t. I’ll do the casting. You get to man the book.” Standing near the kitchen doorway and sitting area so he had a view of both, he tried to divorce himself of any thoughts of how dirty the rag was as he placed it over his eyes and tied the back in place. His world was plunged into darkness. “I’m going to spin around while you start flipping through the pages. When I stop, you stop, and then open to whatever page you were on and pick a spell at random.” 

Hearing Harry trek back to the couch and plop down on it, Draco patiently waited to see if there would be more argument on the matter. But the other teen must’ve seen the fun in it, and just how harmless it really was, for he heard the telltale noise of aged parchment crinkling along a finger. Maybe it was how chaotic his entire life became that the proud Malfoy heir was so eager to abandon poise and composure that night, for that life was in his past. He wouldn’t be going back to his stomping grounds in the Slytherin common room, he wouldn’t return to reigning over a small entourage of Purebloods he falsely considered ‘friends’ when in painful reality they were anything but. Quidditch was over for now, living in an air of aristocratic pomp was gone. 

And all he had left were the broken remains of what used to be his life and the charity of others who were willing to put their own lives at stake for the survival of his family. People, he knew, that already had so much going on like Snape and, more indirectly, Harry. As much as he used his arrogance as a bulwark, he wasn’t so stupid to let it blind him. He knew that by needing Snape’s attention, he was obliquely starving Harry of it. And where he’d typically beam from being in the spotlight, this felt different. Hollower and shameful. 

The Draco from before wouldn’t have tied a dirty dish rag to his face. Nor would he have begun to slowly turn around and around until he lost his bearings, putting himself at nearly every disadvantage with the sole exception of still having his wand in hand. But the Draco from before hadn’t seen what he had seen; he hadn’t seen torture and been tortured, he hadn’t been humiliated and shamed, he hadn’t killed. After experiencing all of that, and after seeing how fragile life truly was and how easily it could be taken away - either with two simple words or as unexpected as a Muggle disease like the one ripping through Harry’s young body – that Malfoy pride from before felt weak and out of place. 

Before, he’d behaved haughtily and prideful when he’d done nothing to warrant acting like that. 

Tonight, he intended on having fun. 

He stopped spinning, having a faint idea that his wand was pointed into the kitchen but having no discernable direction beyond that. He waited. “While we’re still young, Harry.” 

“Um… _Scribblifors_.”

The Slytherin shrugged a little. “Really? Easy first one.” A simple spell taught early on, its effectiveness ranged depending on the target, typically favoring items that shared its likeness in shape and size. He could only hope his wand wasn’t pointed at the kitchen table, chairs, or one of the appliances. But after saying the spell loudly, channeling his willpower into a palpable force, he felt the spell take before he lifted the blindfold to see the result. 

Behind him, he heard Harry’s soft snickers. 

A mug left out on the table had been his victim. And while it was small enough to earn the spell’s favor, the leftover puddle of cold tea from earlier wasn’t transfigured with it. A quill sat where the mug once was, but the feather was soaked in brownish ick, with pieces of loose tea leaves clung to the tip. “I… consider that a success. Messy but a success.” 

The Gryffindor already had the book closed again, finger eagerly running up and down the parchment. “Put the blindfold back on. Let’s go again.” 

And so Draco did, resuming his spinning slowly until he finally stopped, facing somewhere in the direction of the sitting area. His partner in crime didn’t take any coaxing; he was ready and keen this time. 

“ _Lapifors_.” 

That one made the Slytherin pause before he gave a short laugh. “You’re kidding, right? A rabbit? Fine then.” He tensed his jaw and squared his shoulders, focusing once again on his concentration and intent, and cast the spell. Part of him wasn’t expecting it to work – living transfigurations, even from inanimate objects, could be tricky ordeals – and that miniscule doubt wormed its way into the spell, festering the intent and staining the result. 

He lifted the blindfold and almost wished he hadn’t. 

A small rabbit hopped off the mantle where a clock used to be. And both boys immediately jumped when they spotted the rabbit’s back; where a field of thick fur should’ve been was instead the face of the clock, looking like it was perfectly flush with the creature’s body. The rabbit’s nose wiggled in time with the clock’s ticking in the most disquieting of ways, both functioning in harmonic tandem. 

Uncertain what to do with it, Draco controlled the creature to stay by the fireplace. There was no way he wanted it anywhere near him. “Well, that’s bloody disturbing.” 

Harry grimaced as the clock chimed on the hour, making the rabbit’s ears pivot back and forth. “You got an O on your Transfiguration OWL? Did you cheat?” 

The blonde cast a mirthful glare at his counterpart, but a laugh filled his voice. “Evidently, I wasn’t asked to turn a clock into a rabbit.” 

They both fell into pleasant snickers that erupted into rowdy laughter and shouts when the rabbit innocently hopped towards the two of them, the blonde having dropped his control over the amalgamation. While Harry quickly pulled his knees up to his chest on the couch, Draco jumped backwards a bit while he wrestled back his control of the creature, exiling it back near the fireplace to await its eventual untransfiguration. Part of the game was collecting the transfigured items and enjoying the beautiful chaos that would result.

The rabbit-clock hybrid was an added gem to their game. 

Shoving the blindfold on, Draco waited until he heard the book close before resuming his spinning again, uncertain on where he ended up. The joy of the game was already a fantastic distraction, both of them wrapped up in the simple fun that it provided. And the spells and laughter were soon coming faster and faster. 

“ _Orchideous_.” 

The coffee pot became a potted sunflower. 

“ _Tentaclifors_.” 

Three Advanced Potions books combined into a thick, wet tentacle that stretched across the mantle, knocking over trinkets. They both screamed when it oscillated and moved as if attached to a monster of the deep. 

“ _Latrinarors_.” 

Somehow, between his laughing and shaking of his head, Draco managed the spell. A half dozen rolls of toilet paper stood vigil where a small collection of energized crystal eggs once rested on Snape’s desk, each still the sparkling color of the gemstone it was transfigured from. 

“ _Dinosaurum Saginatieous_.”

The chair neatly pushed into Snape’s desk became a large stuffed dinosaur, purple with green spots, but maintained a small seated indent on its back. They both were laughing too hard to care about the rabbit hopping around the sitting room, and too distracted to notice the time shown on its back and how late in the night it had become. 

“ _Melofors.”_

That one was their undoing. And maybe if Draco wasn’t so distracted by his own laughter, exhilarated in the freeing sensation of having fun and no longer suffocated by a burden ladened on his shoulders, that he might’ve been able to hold the spell with more integrity than he did. He distractedly noticed that he’d migrated slightly in his spinning more towards his own room and away from the kitchen doorway, and sloppily pointed his wand towards the direction that he stopped, not quite grasping his bearings enough to realize it was near the entrance to the quarters. After casting the spell, feeling it not only take but do so in a chaotic sort of manner, the blonde was still chuckling as he pulled his blindfold off to see the product. 

The coat rack beside the entrance door was large – too large for the spell given the Slytherin’s paltry hold on his concentration. And though the coat rack transfigured into an appropriately proportioned pumpkin as it was intended, the changing of size didn’t translate well. It kept growing and growing from the inside only, its sides swelling and making a beaded sweat drip down the grooves. 

And seconds before it exploded, the entrance door opened and an unsuspecting, once clean Snape strode into his quarters. 

The world seemed to stop, and silence prevailed in the aftermath of the explosion. Orange, gooey guts with small seeds were splattered all over the walls, ceiling, and floor in a fantastical artwork of autumn pandemonium. The smell was impressive, and maybe if Draco wasn’t being glared at with murderous intent by the Potion Master, he would’ve prided himself on how aromatic the transfigured pumpkin was. Instead he stood there frozen with his arm and wand still extended, pointed near a pumpkin covered Snape while he simply waited for death. Behind him, Harry quietly closed the book and nudged it on the table. 

After several painfully silent seconds, during which a glob of pulp fell from the older Wizard’s face and splattered onto the front of his soiled robes, Snape took a deep breath. “For your sake, Draco, you had best have a good explanation. And I am rather curious to hear it.” 

Though Draco opened his mouth to say something, no words came out. There was a mild panic as he quickly decided between lying or telling the truth, no matter how harmless it could be. But before he could say anything, the rabbit happily hopped past him, straight across the Potion Master’s line of vision, and into the blonde’s bedroom, all the while ticking away.

Snape maintained a deadpanned expression as he took in the various transfigured items around his personal, _private_ quarters. A sanctuary away from the rest of the world now literally transformed into a circus. His stare lingered on the cheerful potted sunflower that stood where his beloved coffee pot used to. 

“I was… showing Harry how to play Transfiguration Roulette, sir,” Draco wet his lips and lowered his wand when his wits returned to him. “It’s a game where--”

“--I am well aware of what Transfiguration Roulette is, Draco. Trying as this is to believe, I used to be a Slytherin student as well. That game predates me, even.” The surprising lighthearted response – and sincere lack of a lecture or killing curse – from the older Wizard came as a surprise to both teens, who again remained staring in a wonderful mixture of aghast, panic, and confusion. Seeing the shared emotions on both boys' faces, Snape shook his head slowly and made a beeline for his rooms. “I expect everything to be pristine and returned to its normal state by the time I return from cleaning up. Understood?” 

There was a collective, quiet: “Yes, sir.” 

But the moment Snape’s door shut, that quiet was abandoned as both teens broke down into fits of laughter. Unknown to both, the pumpkin-covered professor was leaning against the back of his door, listening with a smile. 


	2. Family Trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco teaches Harry a bit about family trees, specifically how they're related.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a "missing chapter" from my sister's story, "The Choices We Made". It's a wonderfully written story that's worth a binge read with a lovely mix of genres. The original story is set in Snape and Harry's POV but with some solid Dramione and Draco time. I've got a few works for it that are exclusively in Draco's POV. As they're 'piggyback chapters' to complement the main storyline, they'll be published periodically when deemed appropriate timing. 
> 
> Author Note: This is fanfiction and clearly breaks from canon. It would be super beneficial to read the main story. Some of the names in the family tree are from canon but the blood relation between the Potters-Malfoys is from my own creative mind.

Draco wasn’t a stranger to solitude. A childhood spent in an ancient manor surrounded on all sides by sprawling fields, his playground had been the generously sized estate and his playmates were the occasional peacocks that were unimpressed with the heir’s desire to play tag and chase them around. It wasn’t that there was a lack of children in Wiltshire; a large county in South Wales with nearly two dozen towns, it was comfortably populated if one knew where to go. But for the privileged Malfoys, they had no desire to mingle with the rabble and those nesting at the bottom rung of society. Every so often, his mother would take tea with one of the other aristocratic wives at the small estate house on the western edge of the property, and the other Purebloods would bring along a child around Draco’s age. But those playdates were far and few between. And at a time when he should’ve been learning how to acclimate with his peers and develop a sense of communal autonomy, he was sequestered away from others his age. 

The manor wasn’t like Snape’s quarters. The main estate alone swelled with dozens of rooms for him to travel through, with portraits of his ancestors to chat with, with books and a dizzying exchange of his parents’ visitors. While Corbin Yaxley’s pockmarked face scowled at the Malfoy’s superfluous use of riches, he was still a favorite of his father’s acquaintances. Out of all of them, Yaxley took the time to directly address Draco. He didn’t crouch down patronizingly like his mother’s friends did, speaking to him in cosseting language usually reserved for infants. And neither did Yaxley act like his father’s other friends, merely eyeing him so brief and cursory that the boy felt invisible, only truly seen as his father’s ‘heir apparent’. 

That title didn’t mean anything to Draco until he grew older. Maybe around his tenth birthday did he begin to understand the implications. But he didn’t really grasp its devastating reality until the summer after his first year at Hogwarts, when he stood in his father’s study and was berated for not receiving the highest marks in his year. There was only one heir to their House, one chance for their honored legacy to transcend and persevere.

And his father made it painfully clear that day in his study. It didn’t matter if Draco had subjects he preferred over others. Because when he finished Hogwarts, he was already destined to inherit the Malfoy estate, enterprises, investments, and title. He had no need to sit for his NEWTs, no need to follow a curriculum pathway into a career. With their sweltering vaults scattered across different countries, investments dipped into multinational ventures, and self-replenishing fortune, he had no reason to work.

That wasn’t why his father demanded perfection from his son. He demanded his heir to continue his own streak of manicured flawlessness. Lucius Malfoy’s legacy, his sole offspring, wasn’t allowed a moment of faltering. He needed to constantly bear the burden he inherited at his conception, before he’d even taken a breath. 

And it was on that warm summer day in his father’s study he was lectured at for treating Harry Potter so openly aggressive. By that point, Draco had been so angry with the previous conversation, being called a disappointment for falling academically behind a Mudblood, that he ignored his father’s words about the Gryffindor. Once upon a time, Harry was considered as a potential candidate to be the next dark wizard, his unexpected survival regaled as evidence for sinister powers. But by the summer, that theory was debunked and his father’s insistence for Draco to stop being so vocally antagonizing was to preserve their family image. 

After their first year together, though, all Draco felt when he heard Harry Potter’s name was an intense wave of jealousy. The two boys couldn’t be more opposite: where Draco’s robes were thickly woven fabric and immaculately tailored, Harry’s were standard issue and oversized in some areas. Where Draco was raised with both of his parents, Harry was orphaned as an infant. Where Draco was followed by a retinue of ‘friends’ all trying to suckle at his family’s influence, Harry had genuine friendships with mates willing to break rules and fight trolls for him. 

No, solitude wasn’t an unfamiliar arena for Draco. He was as intimate with it as he was silence. But while he favored the latter, he actually didn’t like the former. His thoughts were fine enough company for him, and he learned the value in weaponizing silence at an early age, but he didn’t like to be left in solitude for long spans of time. It was why he enjoyed sitting in the Slytherin common rooms with a book; though most gave him a wide berth, he still wasn’t in solitude. 

Sitting on the edge of his bed, Draco glanced around his bedroom as if expecting to find something interesting in the sparse interior. He was still mildly annoyed at Snape for having reverted his transfigured decor; it was true that he had gone overboard with magic that day and probably should’ve just done a few select pieces of furniture at a time. The professor could’ve compromised, met him halfway, and let him keep _something_. 

But no, he was damned to the cheap pale four-poster bed, wobbly wardrobe, and painfully basic desk and chair. The biggest culprit, though, was the cotton comforter. He turned to stare down at it. Cotton. He could imagine his mother’s reaction to it, how she’d slap her dainty palm against her chest and give a little gasp, as if the linen had created a ghastly scandal. 

How dare a Malfoy sleep with a _cotton_ blanket. 

Draco shoved himself to his feet and decided a shower would be good. Then he’d find Harry, likely in the sitting room with that sketchpad of his, and would set up camp in the armchair he had come to claim as his own. 

Figuring he wasn’t going anywhere for the rest of the day, the blonde grabbed his pyjamas on the way to the bathroom; black silk bottoms but he left its matching button up top. Instead, he grabbed an unremarkable, unseemly shirt with sleeves that stopped just above the elbows. 

It was cotton. The outrage. But it was one of the only short sleeved shirts he had. And in the safe recluse of their quarters, he trusted that he could get away with leaving his left arm naked. One of his roommates had the same grisly tattoo, and the other certainly knew of its existence.

After getting out of the shower and toweling himself off, Draco paused in getting dressed and looked down at his left arm, watching a prismatic drop of water trail down his forearm, engorging the black ink in its bubble, before eventually breaking at the argent bracelet and splattering over one of the delicate diamonds in the chain. Sophisticated platinum links with small masculine diamonds embedded in every other piece comprised the lavish bracelet. The jewelry was, he’d grudgingly admit, a tasteful accessory of great worth that Rabastan must’ve paid an exuberant price for. 

Not that a Lestrange was destitute and lacking galleons. They had the money to flaunt. Even on portkeys for their… 

He left that thought unfinished and tugged on his shirt. Point was, he wasn’t used to constantly wearing a bracelet as heavy as that one. Platinum was a luxurious ore, but it was an incredibly heavy one. Much heavier than its mineral counterparts like gold and silver. And he was still trying to figure out how to stop the links from grabbing at fabric whenever he moved and the bracelet’s joints opened. During the daytime, he was getting good with subtly pulling at his cuffs. But at night, he refused to sacrifice the comforts of sleep for Rabastan’s ‘gift’. 

And fuck Rabastan for actually purchasing a better piece of jewelry than Draco bought his own girlfriend for Christmas. 

The conversation after the Death Eater clasped it around his wrist, adhering it with magic that wouldn’t allow it to be taken off until the portkey was activated, was one the teen could’ve lived without. 

_“Don’t ever say I don’t treat you well, little Malfoy_. _I don’t even think Rudolphus has given Bellatrix a piece as bloody good as this. And after you use it to bring Snape here, you can keep it. It’s all yours.” The man chuckled airily into his hair. “A gift.”_

_Draco had turned his wrist left to right, watching the dull light catch in the diamonds, and frowned. “It’s heavy.”_

_The chuckle turned into a full-bellied laugh, the exchange of air tickling the teen’s messed-up hair. The arm around his midsection tightened almost affectionately. No, not affectionately. Possessively. “Circe’s tits, the others were right when I showed them this! Hell will freeze over before a Malfoy is pleased.”_

_Draco had turned to him then with a wry grin, pleased that his name still held sway. As much as the Death Eaters jeered at his family’s loss of position and took joy in their humiliations, their reputation still prevailed. “Or maybe you just have fucking awful taste.”_

But it also told Draco that Rabastan hadn’t picked the bracelet haphazardly. He’d put thought and substantial money into it and had apparently gone so far as to either gloat or get advice from other Death Eaters. Knowing them and their penchant for parading their greatness and honor, it was unquestionably the former. And he also doubted that Rabastan would’ve told them it was a portkey, and instead peacocked his capability to show his claim with the magically attached bracelet. He wondered if the damn thing would come off even after the portkey was used. 

Draco quickly stowed those thoughts in the back of his mind. Running his fingers through his damp hair, he casually strode out of his bedroom into the small ‘foyer’ that he silently claimed as his own. If they were cutting the meager quarters into sections of property, this was his. Much like a country owned a few klicks out at sea from their lands for transportations and trade purposes, so too did Draco own this small piece of openness right outside of his bedroom and between the entrance not far to the left. Snape and Harry could declare war on each other for who owned the corridor shared between their closely placed bedrooms. But this section, this was Draco’s. 

A few steps. That’s all Draco got before he caught a glimpse of his roommate sitting on the couch sideways, facing him with his knees drawn up near his chest, but didn’t seem to notice the blonde’s presence at all. No, Harry’s stare was off to the side, unfocused and distant and captured in a far-off plane where memories thrived and colluding thoughts birthed. It was a place that Draco so often visited to the point of considering himself a resident. 

Draco didn’t know how to interrupt the other teen’s obviously distracting thoughts. As well-bred as he was and taught in the ways of social etiquettes, he didn’t know how to be purposefully obnoxious without intending on being nefarious. It was one of the reasons he marvel's at the kind of relationship Harry had with his friends, how they could poke fun at each other’s expense and dance around the hurtful insult without welcoming it to the conversation. It was alien to him. Trying to give this friendship thing a genuine go, he didn’t want to come across as a git. Not when he didn’t intend on it, anyways. 

And so, he decided to awkwardly go with: “I’m getting some pumpkin juice. You want some?” 

Though he felt the emerald stare on him, he didn’t wait for an answer. In truth, he was already halfway in the kitchen when he asked. After pouring two glasses, he left the kitchen out the doorway that fed into the sitting room. The other teen had returned to his sketchpad, though his pencil wasn’t moving at all. And in the seconds that Draco quietly watched– now standing behind Harry from coming out the other kitchen doorway – he waited to see if the boy would return to his artwork. 

The pencil never moved. 

“I was thinking of something earlier. And I wanted to talk to you about it,” Draco began as he stepped alongside the couch, trying to make his barefeet land loudly so to give forewarning of his approach and not startle the other teen. It did the trick; Harry looked up from the sketchpad in time to see the blonde pointedly place the glass of juice on the table in front of him. 

Whether the sickly wizard would drink it or not was up to him, and Draco wasn’t going to hold it against him if he didn’t. 

Harry watched him quietly for a short time, emerald eyes caught onto silver, before he gave a small shrug. “Depends what it is, I guess,” the boy mumbled in a half-hearted tone. His spirits were still low. 

Maybe it wasn’t the best time to bring it up. 

Plopping down in the armchair, his elbows planted on his shallowly spread knees with the glass dangled between them, Draco looked into the glass. It wasn’t his place. He shouldn’t even care. But if he was risking his life and no longer hedging his bets across all parties, he’d be damned if their ‘side’ against Voldemort was pissed away because Harry didn’t know how to keep good company.

Then again, he tried to offer advice on how to pick good company at the start of First Year and that plan obviously shit the bed. Why would this be any different? 

Back then, he tried to be suave, trying to employ mimicry and act like his father did with his solicitors and diplomats he kept in his back pocket. His mistake – a rookie one, now that he looked back on it – was acting _too_ much like his father. He didn’t appeal to his audience, didn’t act like a social chameleon to learn the pulse of his target and twist the matters how he needed. He was too arrogant and prideful and drunk on his own social buoyancy to notice how poorly aimed that entire approach had been. 

“I… I was thinking about something… for a while now,” Draco repeated, trying to hide the nervousness that somehow weaseled its way into his voice. If nothing else, it made Harry sit up straighter and look at him more acutely. The Slytherin placed his glass on the table. “It’s about Lupin and how I don’t think you should—Stop! Hear me out, will you?” 

Harry stopped in the process of pushing himself off the couch, undoubtedly about to retreat to the quiet confines of his bedroom, where the blonde and conversation couldn’t follow him. “Lupin isn’t any of your business, Draco. Just leave it.” 

The Slytherin tensed his jaw and began to play with the bracelet. The collar reminded him of the life of servitude that’d await him if Harry lost. “Your survival is my business. A vested interest, if you will. I get that you aren’t tossing up enlisting booths to get martyrs to your cause, but the brutal fact, Potter, is that people are filling those roles willingly, with or without your consent. Because they believe in this... cause… and they believe in whatever fairytale rubbish of good conquering evil or whatever you Gryffindors lament to each other about.” 

Maybe it was the candidness in his approach, but Harry was eerily silent and still, his meager frame taut. 

“I get that you can’t use much magic,” Draco continued, taking the silence as an invitation to keep talking. “I get that you're hostage to your own medical condition and, if you weren’t, you’d be running the frontlines in this war with Weasel and Hermione.” He ignored the brief flash of annoyance on Harry’s face at the crude nickname. “But given your track record, I promise you that tense, near death situations will find you. For some reason, you’re a bloody magnet for it.” 

More hearing than seeing Harry swallow thickly, he was quiet for a moment more. “It’s not your place to tell me who I can or can’t spend my time with,” Harry said in a quiet, level tone. And the look, that far-away look, teetered on the edge of Harry’s expression, mingling with despair and confusion.

Draco chuckled humorlessly and dropped his head. His fingers fiddled with the bracelet more furiously. “Believe me, Potter, I learned _that_ lesson a long time ago.” He wet his lips and fought to find clarity in the Slytherin virtues. Cunning. Shrewdness. And yet, the most cunning route to take with the Gryffindor was through a healthy dose of vulnerable honesty. “I’m not asking you to cut ties with people. I’m asking you to stay alive, and to make choices that are more self-preserving than doing what you think is the right thing to spare someone their feelings. Guilt makes for a bad counselor – it often creates two victims when there should only be one.” 

Harry’s eyes narrowed dangerously on him. “You think I want to spend time with Lupin out of _guilt_? You really are mental when it comes to appreciating family and friends.” 

“I think that you’re blinded by your sentimental nature and try to see the good in a situation when there is no good to be seen.” Draco leaned forward and spoke faster. Desperate? No, Malfoy’s don’t get desperate. “I grew up in this world, Harry. You haven’t. I know werewolves and I’ve seen firsthand the… the savagery that they’re capable of. Getting turned?” He slowly shook his head. “That would be a _luxury_ to the carnage I’ve seen Greyback leave. They aren’t normal people, not anymore. And before you tell me Wolfsbane this and Wolfsbane that, it takes an edge off, but it doesn’t cure it.” 

The Gryffindor blinked a few times, and suddenly the aggression that gripped him moments ago was waffled under a blanket of fatigue. “Draco…” maybe it was because the Slytherin hadn’t charged the battlefield with his sword raised and singing a battle cry, but Harry didn’t lash out either. “I appreciate the concern,” the sarcasm was there, “but it’s not needed. I trust myself with Lupin. Besides he’s… he’s kind of like family.” Perhaps sheepish at the admittance, or for some other reason, Harry quickly looked down and began to pick at a stray thread on his flannel pyjamas. 

Draco straightened up at the spine then and blinked once. “Family.” He was more repeating the word for his own sake, honestly trying to understand the Gryffindor’s bleeding heart than anything else. “Just so we’re both on the same page… You feel compelled to give this _man_ – that’s a generous use of the word and we both know it – some kind of chance in your life because he was a mate of your dad’s. And that makes him family? Bloody Merlin, Harry, you met him the same year I did! And suddenly you can just abridge those years lost because he was a ‘great mate’ of your father and consider him – what? An uncle?” 

A scarlet flush stretched over the Gryffindor’s hollow cheeks as he continued to pick at the thread over and over. “Why would _you_ of all people understand? You wouldn’t. You’ve got family! You weren’t… you weren’t raised how I was. And now that I’m finding family, I’m… I’d like to try to keep them around and get to know them. I want to know what it’s like to have family besides Dudley.” 

The Slytherin just stared. Dumbfounded. He waited for the other teen to smirk or laugh to give away that he was joking. Because there couldn’t be any other logical explanation for his ignorance and stupidity on the topic. Unless he really was just painfully oblivious. 

But Harry never laughed or smiled. He just continued to glower in an acrid mixture of seething, embarrassment, and confusion. 

“Harry,” Draco couldn’t stop the small snicker from diving into his voice, making the Gryffindor look up. “You’re a half-blood, you know, right? Your father’s side would’ve been one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight if your great grandfather or something didn’t royally piss off the others and get himself excommunicated. _Every_ Pureblood knows _that_ story. It’s… kind of a parlour tale that’s gotten embellished over the ye- doesn’t matter. What I’m trying to say is if there’s one thing a Pureblood isn’t lacking, it’s family. And believe me – you’ve got an abundance of it.” 

The Gryffindor snorted and tilted his head to the side to give a sarcastic look. “Really? Where are they all?” 

Not losing eye contact, Draco lifted one hand and gave a theatrical gesture down himself. 

Harry shook his head. “Bugger off, we’re not related.” But it at least got the Gryffindor to chuckle and settle back into the couch. 

“To be certain, I’m related to probably half this bloody school from my mother’s side alone. But I’m being honest. Here. I’ll draw a family tree for you.” 

As doubtful as Harry was about the whole thing – at least outwardly – he was rather eager to rip out a piece of clean paper from his sketchpad and offer it over to the blonde. But the size, a flimsy square that would _maybe_ be big enough for the first two generations on the immediate Black side wouldn’t be nearly enough to showcase the overwhelming ties knotted in their shared genealogy. 

Draco laughed and shook his head. “Going to need a lot larger parchment than that.” 

After a quick trip to the desk, the blonde cleared off the table between them and spread out an entire roll of wide-cut parchment, placing an inkpot and arming himself with a quill. Eyeing his canvas, Draco quickly thought back to the numerous genealogical tapestries and family trees that were hammered into his head at an early age, even the ones that were cast out and disinherited for unsavory life choices. Bad history was as imperative, arguably even more important, than good if one wanted to avoid repeating past transgressions. Among Pureblood families, those who were disowned became points of education, horror stories told to heirs about how quickly they could be renounced by straying from their ideals. 

The Potters fell into that category. 

“Right, so I don’t know your _entire_ family history,” Draco mumbled with a sigh, trying to think about where to start the complex family web. “I just know where it mostly intersects with mine. Which, you should know, is on both sides, the Malfoys and the Blacks. I suppose theoretically we’re more recently related through marriage on the Black side, but we’re blood related—” he looked up then to judge the Gryffindor’s reaction, “—on the Malfoy side.” 

The sketchpad was placed to the side to give Harry room to lean forward keenly. His gaze kept nervously jumping from the empty parchment to the Slytherin, back and forth, back and forth. “You said you’re related to a lot of people.” 

Draco nodded. “Tons. My parents’ wedding had over five hundred guests. The Blacks have a penchant for finding their spouses on the family tree.” They both shared a disgusted look. “The Malfoy side doesn’t believe in inbreeding. So, on my father’s side, they typically find their spouses through Purebloods in other countries or they marry half-bloods. I think I’d be hardpressed to find a Pureblood I _wasn’t_ related to in some way.” 

He figured the easiest way to tackle the family tree was to start with what he knew – his own. Drawing a circle with his name in it at the very bottom of the parchment, he connected it to two more circles right above it and wrote ‘Lucius Malfoy’ and ‘Narcissa Black’ in them. “You want to start with the Blacks or Malfoys?” The blonde asked the other wizard. 

“Whichever side is related by blood.” 

Nodding, Draco drew a straight line up from his father’s bubble. “So, here’s the thing with this side of the family. It’s rather… tame compared to the Blacks. We don’t have much relations to the other Sacred Twenty-Eight on the Malfoy side in the past few generations, barring my parents, naturally. They were must more selective in their spouses to make sure there were no… genetic abnormalities.” 

He filled in the bubbles above his father where his grandparents were – ‘Abraxas Malfoy’ and ‘Marie-Hélène Barthélemy’ – and continued the direct line up from there, one set of grandparents after the next through a few sets of generations. ‘Gaius Malfoy’ proceeded by ‘Septimus Malfoy’, proceeded by ‘Gaëtan Malfoy’, until finally he stopped at ‘Brutus Malfoy’. 

Harry pointed at each issue, namely there being only one offspring in each generation. “Are you not showing siblings for time sake?” 

The Slytherin shook his head. “No siblings to show. Malfoys usually only have one child. One heir. And even that’s difficult. It’s… something to do with the dark artefacts kept in the manor. But it makes this family tree infinitely easier to illustrate. Look here.” He tapped the tip of his quill against the parchment a few times to make the Gryffindor look back down at it. “This is where there’s some blood relations. Your…” he looked up at the ceiling in thought, “however great aunt married my however great grandfather.” He added another bubble, wrote in ‘Octavia Potter’, and connected it with a dotted line to ‘Brutus Malfoy’. “She’s my distant grandmother. We’re related by blood through her. That was in the seventeenth century, so… we’re blooded cousins on that side.” 

Harry was staring at his distant aunt’s bubble, his brows drawn together in a look of concentration as if trying to decide how to categorize the new information. For years, he was suffocated of any family knowledge, as most orphans were, but now he was being told antiquated material. “We share Potter blood. Not Malfoy blood.” 

Draco pressed his lips together at that observation. Prat. “Correct.” And just to save face. “When our ancestors married – keep in mind – your family was still considered in positive standing. Your lot didn’t piss off the Pureblood society until much later.” 

The Gryffindor still had that small grin on his face, though. And that was enough to make the blonde quickly continue, drawing a line from his grandmother over to an unblemished, free section on the parchment to begin the Potter side. “Like I said, I don’t know much on the Potter lineage beyond what I’ve seen from the Malfoy tapestries. If we survive this war, I’ll take you to the manor sometime and show you them. We’ll even add your name to it.” It was said in sarcasm, but it was a nice enough fantasy to pretend in. 

‘Octavia Potter’ was connected with three more bubbles on the same line to indicate they were all siblings, and he filled those with their names: ‘Abraham Potter’, ‘Clement Potter’, and ‘Octavia Potter’. His quill tapped Clement’s bubble a few times before dragging a line down from it. “This is your distant grandfather. I… don’t know the names of your grandmothers in some of the generations that follow here. My ancestors must not have cared to know.” He shrugged indifferently. “Patriarchal concepts.” 

He continued to fill in the male Potter names that he could remember – Tobias Potter succeeded by Felix Potter succeeded by Aurelius Potter until he finally stopped at Amos Potter. Penning a dotted line beside Amos, he drew a bubble for his wife and filled in the name ‘Beatrice Fleamont’. “These are your great-great grandparents. And they had a child, one son, named Henry Potter, who would be your great grandfather.” He drew the line directly downward and filled in Henry’s bubble. “He was also known as ‘Harry’. And if you’re wondering who your parents named you after, I would bet half of my family vault that it was _this_ bloke. Because this also happens to be the sod that got your family kicked out of Pureblood society for his outspoken muggle advocacy.” 

Harry was so enthralled by the information that his wide-eyed, intrigued stare on the tree almost made the Slytherin smirk. But the sad truth that the Gryffindor likely never heard this information before stopped the blonde from laughing at his expense. Had Harry been raised among Purebloods, had he been placed in Slytherin like he said he almost was, this wouldn’t have been novel information for him. Harry would’ve been told this early on, probably within the first week, and certainly even sooner than that had he accepted Draco’s audacious offer of friendship. 

Looking back on it, if Draco could redo that entire conversation in First Year, he would’ve pulled the cousin card right away. And promptly ignored that Weasley was also a distant cousin but Harry wouldn’t have had to know that at the time. He should’ve realized that an orphan gravitated to any and all mentions of familial connections. Yes, that was certainly an embarrassing failure on his part. 

How different life would’ve been. 

“What happened?” Harry eventually asked, looking up at the blonde with a strange sort of calm about him. “With Henry Potter, I mean.” 

Draco tilted his head left to right a bit in deliberation. “At this point, it’s hard to dissect reality from the embellishments, really. But the basics is that he served on the Wizengamot for a little less than ten years, until 1921. He didn’t like the Minister’s decision to keep the Wizarding community out of the First World War. Thought that it was our duty as much as the rest of the world to offer a helping hand but doing so would go against the Statutes. In the end, he pissed off the Purebloods with his Pro-muggle stance and tirelessly criticizing the Ministry to the point that when the 1930s came, Potters were excluded from the Sacred Twenty-Eight.” 

Harry frowned and shook his head. “Seems unfair. How can the Purebloods just be ok with leaving the rest of the world to… to fight like that? He was only trying to help.” 

The blonde pointed the quill at the other teen. “He was an obnoxious git, is what he was. The Malfoys _did_ help out – discretely and unbeknownst to the Ministry – by funding war bonds, investing in reconstruction and weaponry. Meanwhile, Henry got himself and his entire family marked as revolutionists.” 

Emerald eyes narrowed on him. “You mean your family made _money_ off the war. They didn’t help.” 

“It’s called seeing a return on an investment, Potter. The money helped win the war, and my family’s vaults saw growth from it.” Draco shrugged dismissively and went back to drawing. “Anyways, Henry married a half-blood wife and they had your grandfather, Fleamont Potter. Who, as we all know, made your family fortune by developing Sleekeazy's Hair Potion.” Great product that he used to use daily but less so these days. “Henry had two sons. The other, Charlus Potter, is your great uncle. And he married my great aunt, Dorea Black.” He drew the connection between them, creating a bubble for Dorea that would eventually feed into one of the largest sections of the parchment that had, so far, been untouched. “Charlus and Dorea had a son but he died in infancy.” 

Feeling like that was a lot of information at once, Draco glanced up to make sure Harry was still following. And to also read his reaction. But the Gryffindor’s curtain of emotions, as vivid as always, flickered between sentimental, confusion, and gloom. The last emotion was the one that made the Malfoy heir pause, his quill pressed against the parchment, and hesitate on whether it was smart to finish off the tree or not. He knew he was treading in grief-infested waters, especially with the next generation in the Potter line that needed to be filled in. But his hope, he realized, was that the other teen would emerge from the conversation no longer looking to fill family vacancies with werewolves. 

Harry had family at his disposal if that was what he truly wanted. He only needed to know where to look.

“I’ll get to the Black side in a bit,” the blonde muttered as he dotted a line from Fleamont Potter to indicate a marriage, wrote in ‘Euphoria Potter’ as the wife, and finally created a short line downwards. Hasty and somewhat careless in his cursive penmanship, he hurried through this generation, awkward at the grief that surrounded it and not feeling well equipped to offer words if Harry got choked up. 

He connected ‘James Potter’ and ‘Lily Evans’ with a dotted line before sharply dragging the quill down to finally make the last bubble in the Potter tree. Proud of himself for having estimated the spacing correctly, the bubble with ‘Harry Potter’ in it was at the same level as Draco’s in the middle of the parchment, both at the very bottom. 

“We’re in the same generation so we’re not removed cousins like I am with Sirius Black,” Draco explained with a sigh, finally looking up then to see Harry studying him. “But just focusing on the Malfoy-Potter side of things, we’re cousins through distant ancestors up here.” He tapped his knuckle against the dotted line between Octavia Potter and Brutus Malfoy. 

And though it wasn’t needed at this point, especially considering it was only through matrimony, Draco backtracked to the marriage between Charlus Potter and Dorea Black, drawing a stroke from the latter to form a sibling line. “And Dorea Black had three other siblings,” he drew them while he spoke, “Cassiopeia, Marius, and Pollux. Pollux Black married Irma Crabbe—” He looked up then at Harry and winced. “Great aunt to Vincent Crabbe so we’re cousins, too. Pollux and Irma had three children,” the tree continued to grow from one generation into the next. “Walburga Black, Alphard Black, and Cygnus Black III. Cygnus married Druella Rosier and had the three infamous ‘Black Sisters’.” Finally, the Black tree connected with his immediate family, where the whole thing first began. “Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa Black. And obviously, you can see how that connects to me.” 

Seeing Harry intently studying the different branches on the Potter tree, Draco gave the parchment a little nudge in the Gryffindor’s direction. “You can keep it until I can get you a better one. Once the manor is exterminated of its Death Eater infestation, I can get to the drawing room and see the genealogies proper there.” He cleared his throat and quickly added in a quieter, awkward tone. “I want to check to see Hermione’s lineage too. She might be related to Hector Dagworth-Granger but not sure. It’d definitely be a selling point to my parents.” 

But Harry didn’t hear that last part. Really, the Slytherin would’ve been impressed if the other teen heard anything he said at all. That distant look was back in his eyes, the one that carted him away before and wrapped him up in arresting thoughts. But unlike before, there wasn’t much despair scrawled across the Gryffindor’s visage. No, there was a heartbreaking dose of contentment, so strong and potent that it made the green eyes glisten beneath pools of unshed tears. The image, the situation, was not one that Draco foresaw and was trying to achieve. He wasn’t the type of person to know how to comfort another; he didn’t even know how to comfort himself outside of knowing to break down behind closed doors and a heavy use of silencing charms. 

Harry wasn’t like him, though. The Gryffindor was emotionally reactive, allowed whatever sentiment he was feeling take front center stage in his being, and treated his expression like a window to his torment and emotions. Maybe if he was placed in Slytherin and was surrounded in the emotionally repressed world of Pureblood society, Harry would’ve been taught how to turn numb to his feelings. 

But that wasn’t the case. And Draco was just beginning to learn how to make sense of normal, natural emotions. Hermione would tell him to reach out and physically comfort Harry. She would tell him the Gryffindor needed reassurance that he wasn’t riding solo in whatever emotional roller coaster he was on. 

The Slytherin couldn’t do that, though. But neither could he abandon the emotional teen to flounder in his sea of passion that Draco had basically dropped him off in. 

Grinning a little, the blonde leaned forward as he watched a tear streak down the other’s face. “Hey, come on now. I’m sure being related to me wasn’t on your agenda but it’s not _that_ bad.” 

They both laughed. Because they both knew that wasn’t what choked Harry up. And as Harry wiped away the wetness from his face with his palm, the other hand tightly gripping the parchment, Draco looked away to give him a moment to compose himself. But a quiet voice pulled the blonde’s attention back to him. “Thank you for this,” Harry said softly. “Even if I disagree with your assessment on Lupin, I appreciate what you did here. And…and I don’t even know if you understand really what you did. But you did a lot.” 

Lupin. Werewolves. Right. That was the original reason for this. 

Sighing, Draco racked his fingers through his hair, the silky strands already having dried. “Keep up your friendship with the werewolf if you like, but at least use common sense. I know Gryffindors have a lack of self-preservation, but they aren’t absent of common sense. Don’t be alone in a room with him, especially if you’re unarmed and compromised. I know you want to see the good in people.” He barked a short laugh. “Which I’m thankful for considering I’m one that’s benefitted from that streak, but Lupin isn’t like us. He isn’t just a man. There’s a whole set of animal instincts in him that drives him to do things that we can’t understand. I’m not asking you to snuff him out of your life, alright? I’m just asking you to channel your inner Slytherin and start to employ a bit of self-preservation and common sense. Don’t put yourself at risk if you don’t have to. We kind of need you for the end game.” 

Harry slowly pushed himself to stand, the parchment still tucked close to him, and didn’t address what Draco said. Instead, he turned the spotlight around with a disarming question that made the blonde stiffen. It was, arguably, one of the most Slytherin things the Gryffindor had ever done. “With all of the cousins that you have, do you consider all of them family?” 

But Draco was raised to slice words and juice out their meaning and intent in seconds. He saw the two avenues his answer could lead to; either he said yes and indicated that he considered the other teen, and half the school, as fulfilling some kind of family role, or he said no and unraveled all of the work he just did. Really, though, Draco’s answer didn’t so much matter. He knew what Harry was trying to ask, he saw what he was trying to reassure. 

“Some.” Draco settled for a cryptic, non-answer. “Do you?” 

He watched the emerald gaze turn hard and rigid like the gemstones they represented as they dipped away from the Slytherin’s face. And following the stare, Draco fought the urge to tuck his left arm against himself when he found the other teen eyeing the ugly tattoo contrasted against his ivory skin. A silence stretched between them for a few shattering seconds, until…

“If I’ve learned anything this past year, it’s that family isn’t just found on genealogy trees... And sometimes the people found on the trees are evil and bad and want nothing more than to hurt you,” Harry eventually said in an unreadable tone. “But that doesn’t mean that you can’t find good people there, either. And that once you find those good people, it’s never too late to consider them family.” He looked down at the parchment. “Do you think later you can fill in some more spaces? Severus has a genealogy book I can get to help you.” 

The conversation was too emotional for Draco’s particular palate. From the tears to the heartfelt words undoubtedly leveled at him, the blonde wasn’t sure what to make of anything. And he certainly didn’t have the heart to tell Harry that family in the Malfoy and Black side of things just meant having an extra arm of power. They didn’t see cousins and family as sentimental relationships, people who compelled you to toss an extension charm on the dining room table and invite over for Christmas brunch. Pureblood society was aristocratic and maintained a court stylization. Loyalty typically – at least by design – remained in families and alliances were built through unions. 

But again, he couldn’t tell Harry that or it’d undo all the work and the Gryffindor would go back to clinging to random people from his parent’s past. Like werewolves. 

“Err… yeah, sure, no problem,” the Slytherin mumbled as Harry was already making his way down the corridor to his room. Maybe the Gryffindor read his awkwardness and planned to cry it on his own. Draco wouldn’t hold it against him. It was a respectable thing to do. And so he also stood up from the couch and turned to retreat back to his own bedroom. 

“Now that you mention it, I think I can see some of the Potter in you.” 

Draco spun fast to the other teen, finding Harry across the quarters, his grin obnoxiously evident even with the distance. “Confident enough to say that with all of this space between us now, are you? You’re lucky I don’t have my wand.” 

“What’s wrong?” The Gryffindor had one foot already into his bedroom, apparently ready to flee for safe cover. So he did possess self-preservation. “I’m just pointing out something that you helpfully mentioned today. There’s no shame in having Potter blood-”

“-Stop it-”

“-Actually, now that I think about it, your entire Malfoy line would have Potter blood. Wow, imagine-”

“-that was not the purpose of this, and you _bloody_ well know it-”

But Harry’s head was shaking as he strutted – the prat _strutted_ – into his bedroom with a happily little bounce in his step and shut the door on the still blabbering Slytherin. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I survive on kudos, comments, and coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> I survive on kudos, comments, and coffee.


End file.
